The story about a Kentucky student arrested after writing what he called a “zombie story” is still inspiring comments, and, as expected, still causing more people to blame the media for the whole thing. I received the following comment on my earlier piece about what constitutes “Shoddy” Reporting?:

The shoddy reporting wasn’t just get two sides. Media is expected to do more than that. They are explected to check facts. (Was there a story? Did it mention zombies? Was it assigned? Was there evidence beyond the journal — Answers: There were two stories; they were about a pseudo-military group taking over a school by force and did notmention zombies, a zombie or anything described in such a manner as to lead one to believe there were zombies or a zombie in the story; Poole had no such assignment, and seven documents taken — six in addition to the journal.)

They are expected to show both sides of the story without taking sides. How did they take sides? Well, the cop’s quote was cut so that it didn’t make sense. Now, that couldhave been fixed two ways — use the complete quote explaining the felony or use the partial quote and use the law itself to explain the felony. But WLEX chose to air and send out over the AP wire the partial quote.

Poole made a statement that half the school knew him and knew he wasn’t “that stupid, that crazy.” They could have interviewed other students to see if that description was accurate. (Hey, even the guy’s own brother appeared on TV saying that William Poole belonged in jail because he was dangerous.)

WLEX was irresponsible at the least. Possibly, in their attempt to get “The Big Story” (this is one of their promotional themes — each night they air “The Big Story”) they were even unethical. Either way — yes it’s shoddy reporting.

I do agree with with you that the news consumers didn’t ask much before assuming, but the story was slanted towards the student and news consumers tend to trust their media to fully cover the story. The blame lies first with the media.

It sounds as though this commenter lives in WLEX’s market. I don’t…I merely used their version of the story as an example since they were able to land the interview with the student himself. But a few points are worth addressing.

He or she says the media is supposed to check the facts. Naturally. They got the facts from the student who wrote the story, and got a differing opinion from the police who were prosecuting him. When a court case is being litigated, they won’t get any more facts than what is released to them. That’s just life. It’s not their fault that specific details weren’t available; but they did have two sides of the story and both sides gave a representation of the facts that were available at that time.

They didn’t so much take sides as present the story of a student who says he is innocent of charges he faces. How many people being prosecuted say they didn’t do it? WLEX didn’t say he didn’t do it, they only said that he said he didn’t do it. They followed this with a police quote in which a detective said he did do it. You must decide for yourself. The media didn’t say he did or didn’t. That’s fair reporting. I find nothing irresponsible in the WLEX story I quoted, even after having learned more about the story since.

As for the police quote being cut down, this happens every day in every story: if newscasts were two hours long instead of thirty minutes, maybe they wouldn’t have to do so…but then again, this is where the news consumers come in. If they were willing to sit through news that long, the local stations would be delighted to produce that type of programming.

He or she suggests that they should have interviewed his classmates to find out if they thought he was crazy. What facts would this provide? To be fair, they would have to seek out people who said he was and wasn’t, and they would have to trust that the people they interviewed actually knew who they were talking about…there’s no way they can know that. Plus, in case you aren’t aware, a camera crew cannot simply walk into a school and interview students without parental and school permission. Given the circumstances, it’s only natural to expect that they would have had a hard time getting it.

I am not aware of the student’s brother appearing on television to side against the student. But the story was very clear that the student was turned in not by classmateswho were trying to pull a prank, but by his own grandparents. People automatically assumed that the grandparents were either senile or overreacting — or both — in calling police. Why does it lend more credibility if another family member says he’s dangerous? If they didn’t believe the grandparents, why believe the brother?

The media is not supposed to “spoon feed” the truth to you. In these days of constant accusations of bias, it would be ridiculous of anyone to watch a story about something being disputed and assume that they know the full truth. The best that the media can do — and what it should be expected to do — is to give those sides and let you decide for yourself what you believe. If you later find new information not available earlier, and this new information changes your mind, there’s no reason to blame anyone for this: it says a lot that someone is willing to consider new details with enough of an open mind that his opinion can be changed to begin with.

The comment’s last line speaks volumes: “I do agree with with you that the news consumers didn’t ask much before assuming, but the story was slanted towards the student and news consumers tend to trust their media to fully cover the story. The blame lies first with the media.” If people really distrust the media as much as they like to say, it is asinine for them to then blindly trust the media to fully cover the story to begin with. Where does this trust begin and where does it end?

With all respect, I have found that the blame only lies first with the media mostly in the minds of those who prefer that the media to do all of their thinking for them.